Kirin - 374,740,000,000 cans-worth of beer were consumed in one year around the world

Kirin started researching beer consumption in the major counties of the world 40 years ago. Recently they finished their latest annual research - for 2012 - and revealed the report.

They found that people in those countries consumed 374,740,000,000 500ml cans worth of beer in 2012, which is equivalent to 151 Tokyo Domes.

The country that drank the most beer was China. Their consumption consists of one forth of the whole amount, which may seem surprising, but maybe not so much on a per capita basis when you have 1.3 billion people. The U.S. is in 2nd place, and Japan is in 7th place in terms of total consumption.

Per capita consumption in Japan is 43.5 liters, which is equivalent to 87 500ml cans of beer. It's the highest per capita amount among Asian countries, however we are only 40th place in the world on a per capita basis. Topping this list was the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.

But what about differences in what is actually being consumed? There is no mention of differences of alcohol % or in the type or quality of the beer consumed. Many of us in Japan think that Japan should be at the top of the list of beer taste!